


Suramar is some kind of hell

by halduronbrightwang



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Addiction, Blood Elves, Denial of Feelings, Emotionally Repressed, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Oneshot, Overdose, Past Drug Addiction, enemies to sort of friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halduronbrightwang/pseuds/halduronbrightwang
Summary: Suramar, the shining jewel of the Broken Isles and Highborne legacy, is so much like Silvermoon it brings to light just how close the Blood Elves came to destroying themselves.Inris, though not the most outstanding person, understands this better than most of his party, and confesses his stress of the reminders of such to an unlikely person.





	

Flashes of images flowed through the paladin’s mind as he lay in the burnt orange grass, spattered with tiny blue and purple shards. A flash of light, jutting forth from the holy pool of the Sunwell to the sky faltering and growing dark. He drew a deep breath as the image faded, only for another to take its place. The wretched, hungering and desperate, scavenging the remains of a once glorious city- some dared to say the jewel of the Eastern Kingdoms- that descended into ruin like vultures for their next fix. Another breath, another memory that faded away and was replaced.

Arcane crystals had consumed so much of his recent life that they were frequent images in his mind, not so unlike the mana crystals he’d spent days, maybe weeks now, gathering for the Nightborne, who risked everything to not become the withered. Looking upon them, so frail, shivering at the slightest chill, looking as if the slightest breeze would knock them down, there were not unlike the wretched back home in Silvermoon. Like Inris himself almost became. Laying in the grass, he wondered aloud if using too many would have the same effect: magic coursing through his veins like lightning, burning and white hot like the glow of his eyes had become more than once as it mutated and twisted flesh into something wrong, not quite right, the punishment for those magic starved individuals who gorged themselves on it at the first chance. 

Just as he did.

His ears perked at the sound of the grass crunching underfoot and the paladin turned to see a fellow member of the order. “Oh, it’s you.” lying back down he huffed and resumed to look over the landscape- Suramar city not too far off, the sheer amount of magically infused objects there, be it from the civilians or the forces readying to siege the city he did not know, he could feel even from here. The other paladin tucked his cloak under him as he sat, uncomfortably close given their tension filled relationship. Fennil was quiet for a while, eyes darting around as he watched fresh soldiers spew from the portals from Silvermoon and Darnassus. Fed up with the other’s proximity, Inris scooted to the side and demanded to know what he wanted. Still, after all the years, he looked down upon the man as someone not fit to even be a squire, though as the Silver Hand itself rested in his lap, it was clear the order felt otherwise. Despite that, he wanted little to do with Fennil and most certainly his pity.

Inris knew it was him Allir told about his… misfortune with the arcane crystals when they came to Suramar to aid the rebellion. Inris knew it was Fennil who then told the entirety of the guild to keep an eye out, even that warlock, young enough to be Inris’ son, no, grandson, treating him like a misbehaving child out for trouble. 

“I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Okay? Okay? Inris gaped at the fellow paladin only a few seconds before unleashing a torrent of curses, insults, and blatant observations upon the other man. Of course he wasn’t okay, this was some kind of cruel torture.

“How dare you even ask, of course not! What, did your mother drop you as an infant, shake you perhaps? Because I am about to do so by your skinny little neck for even daring to ask such a thing!” 

Fennil didn’t seem phased in the least, which only angered the other more. He spat out more insults but they quickly delved into ramblings about what was irritating him disguised as scathing remarks.

“Do you even understand, what all of this, everything we are doing in Suramar, is like for me? Don’t answer that, of course you wouldn’t. All of this, the Legion, the withered, the Nightwell, all of it is just raking open a wound again of what happened in Silvermoon. What I lived through, unlike you, you just a mere babe when it all happened. Everything is a slap in the face of just how close our people became to end up like this thanks to Kael’thas. How close did we come to our own destruction? How close are we to still meeting this fate? Empty husks tearing at one another, friend and foe, for tiny scraps of magic as our empire falls and crumbles around us and demons hold our lives in the balance.” He let out a bitter laugh as he jabbed the man beside him in the shoulder. 

“You ungrateful, naive, stupid boy, you were much too young for that. You didn’t see what I, Allir, even your own wife had seen. As our friends and family fell to the Scourge and came for our own necks. When the Sunwell was destroyed by our own prince and some overly optimistic ranger took his place on the throne- no I doubt you were even walking when that happened. I bet you don’t even know what it felt like before all of that. The magic coursing through your veins like fire, making you feel as if you could do anything in the world! You know nothing, Fennil, nothing of the glory we once had as a people, and it’s made you an ungrateful worm to see this now.” 

Inris’ voice grew hoarse, his laughter nearly becoming sobs but he fought it back, continuing to prod the man until he was sure he was leaving bruises beneath Fennil’s armor and padding. 

“This, all if this, is how far we could have come and how far we could have fallen. Our people are not a phoenix rising from its own ashes in a blaze of glory, we’re just as wrecked and ruined as we were but now we cannot even pretend that we weren’t because we can see how close we came to oblivion with our own eyes. You look upon this and think that you can just fix it, a little heal there, a little scripture of the light there, and everything will be okay, fine and dandy again. It has been years, nearly your entire life if not more that we have tried to fix this for our own people and we still are tortured by the need to drain the magic.” Fennil opened his mouth to say something, but Inris quickly stopped him. 

“Up up up, I’m not done! Oh yes, we have the Sunwell again thanks to some big blue brutes swooping in to save the day, but we are not saved, no, instead of curing us that ‘Prophet’ of theirs merely gave us a lifetime supply of drugs. May as well force the arcane crystals into our hands at this point, because the only reason you haven’t lost your mind as I have so many times craving magic is because you are always taking it in. I bet it felt like heaven on earth when the Sunwell was reignited for you, because you’re too stupid and naive to know what it means. You don’t realize you’re still an addict, do you? I bet you’ve never even come close to becoming like them.” 

Inris finally stopped his maddened rant to point out a small cluster of withered shambling across the forest before being dispatched by the so called peacekeepers sent by the Kirin Tor. He laughed again, how fitting an analogy. 

“Put down like dogs, thank you Kirin Tor, ha ha!” Inris yelled, waving at the battle mages who stood separating the two groups of elves so ready to tear one another to pieces if it weren’t for a common enemy. He was panting from all the energy he wasted telling the other man how incompetent and foolish he was, Inris’ next words being hardly above a whisper on the light breeze.

“The Purge of Dalaran wasn’t the first time they nearly destroyed us, declared us the enemy. How much do you think it would take for them to realize all of us are not unlike the withered? Now that it is known that all elves, all of us, can be doomed to suffer that kind of fate? We are vermin to them, and the ever so watchful Violet Eye is here not to protect us, but to watch us. To make sure that we are kept in line before we too are put down. It’s only a matter of time.” He sneered at the thought of the bloodshed, the creeping thought of how many still were in the Violet Hold. Who knew if there were still his people imprisoned there not only from the mess of a war Pandaria was but the first time Dalaran decided that the elven people were too dangerous to be let free.

“As soon as the Kirin Tor learns we will all be reduced to withered, wretched, however you may call it, they will destroy us. Khadgar or Jaina, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they’ve always been like this. Humans. It’s just so easy to slip away high off as much mana and arcane you can take before your eyes glow white hot and you lose it all than deal with it. Than even think about it. Works wonderfully for all kinds of issues. Sleeping in the street in much more comfortable with half a dozen crystals in your pocket.” 

Without even realizing, Inris began to ramble about his troubles with the mana crystals that were scattered all around Suramar. They were so similar he could likely use them as a substitute for the arcane crystals his life revolved around for so many years, the ones that on more than one occasion almost ended it. Something seemed to of clicked in Fennil’s mind as the way he looked at the raven haired paladin changed, like he had a better understanding of the man. Fennil’s ears twitched as he continued listening intently, his eyes locked onto the man as he continued.

Inris had never told a soul, not even Allir, how close he’d become to being a wretched. Of course he was there the last and final time, the time the now death knight had threatened to chop off his hands so he couldn’t get ahold of anymore crystals as the illustrious Lady Liadrin threw them out on their hides from the Blood Knights, but there were so many times before that. And every time, every time he came close to losing it all, it was so harder to break away. How his hunger for arcane magic grew every time, how more and more was needed to sate it. The days that he’d go out and scour the darkest pits of Silvermoon for even a flake of an arcane crystal and hoard them like a rodent preparing for winter when it came time for his next binge and he’d feed, feed until his eyes were white from the magic coursing through him and threatening to tear him apart. More oft than not it was other bottom feeders like him that kept him alive, stopping him with vicious beatings as they made off with whatever crystals Inris had gathered for himself. Like desperate starving vultures fighting for dry bones in Tarnaris they fought and squabbled as they slowly but surely killed themselves for any bit they could find. 

Fennil was still silent when Inris finally stopped talking, as he realized what words had come out of his mouth. His ears pinned back, eyes wide and long thin eyebrows drooped there couldn’t be a more clear image of pity written on another elf’s face. Inris studied the man’s face, waiting for him to say something, but Fennil didn’t. May as well hurry up the process.

“Go ahead, say it, you pity me. It’s written all over your face.”

“I don’t.” 

He was about to argue, but Fennil stopped him. “I don’t pity you, not at all. You- You did what you had to get by. It’s because of people like you, the Blood Knights, even for what they were then, that we’re even still around. I don’t think we would have come as far as we did if there hadn’t been people fighting to make a future, even for… stupid, naive, idiot, ungrateful people like me,” Fennil chuckled, flashing a stunned Inris that perfect winning smile a moment as he got up, “Anyone who had to go through that era really deserves to be called the real heroes, like you said, we couldn’t have come much closer to our own destruction if we tried.” 

Inris had no words. His mouth had completely dried up and his head was full of cotton as he tried to process what the other man was saying. Him? A hero for digging around in the muck and just about killing himself for arcane crystals? Tempted to slip back into that as if the past ten years didn’t even happen? The recovery and struggle he’d gone through with himself all for naught was a hero? It just didn’t make sense, clearly Fennil had to of been brain damaged from the day Inris slugged him and tore his cheek up with his ring. Or the time he shoved him from his horse and he his the cobblestone like a sack of potatoes. Or even- There were too many times to count that Inris had inflicted bodily harm onto the other paladin, his only competition for the position of Highlord. It didn’t even matter to him, Fennil just dusted off the bits of grass and leaves clinging to his cloak and offered Inris a hand to get up, which the man took, still in stunned silence. 

“Come on, Amazil and Allir are making dinner. They’ll both kick our arses to the curb if we’re late.” Already the blonde man was taking the reigns of his raptor in hand to prepare to leave, holding out Inris’ own to his horse like they’d been chatting about the weather and not Inris spilling his guts of all his worries and concerns and fears to a man he undoubtedly despised. 

Inris would never understand him, it would seem, but what he said… it did give him a clearer picture. Not completely accurate but more accurate than the image of him he kept in his mind of a foolish idiot swinging the Silver hand like a club, but it would have to do for now.  
Still, Inris kicked him in the shin on his way by, making it clear that just because they now knew more of one another they they certainly, never in a million years, not until the very last star in the Great Dark itself went out, would they ever, ever be friends.


End file.
